'Real Housewives of OC' Recap: Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill

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'Real Housewives of OC' Recap: The Bride and Frankenstein

By:
Brian Moylan
May 09, 2012

I call the Real Housewives all sorts of mean names, from screech banshees to shriek harridans to feces-chucking monkeys, but basically they are all just monsters. They are awful molded flesh, plasticine, and filler wrapped around a dark core. They're the opposite of a Scooby-Doo villain who looks like an evil sea creature but you tear off it's head and there is a human underneath. They all (well, most of them at least) look like real people but when you gaze deep into their eyes or other orifices you see that there is just some gross squid mutant below, shucking and jiving its limbs in the blackest abyss. Yes, they're all monsters, but the biggest monster I have ever seen was Vicki when her daughter announced that she eloped. It's like she turned into Slimer from Ghostbusters just wobbling through the air and pelting everyone with green glowing globs of her all-consuming narcissism.
Vicki says that Brianna eloping was disrespectful and rude. She says, "You've taken every dream away from me. It robbed me...Hello, it's not about them...I hate to make it about me." Oh Vicki. You are like the cowpie stain on King Joffrey's face. That's what you are: Residual turds. Everything she has to say about Brianna's marriage is wrong because, well, it is about Brianna and her husband. Their relationship is about them. It has nothing to do with you, Vicki. Yes, you may be disappointed and upset, sure, but you have absolutely no right to carry on like you have been robbed of some fundamental right. Driving your daughter crazy about the flowers at the engagement party isn't in the constitution. It isn't even in the covenants of whatever gated community you live in. It's not even in your Bravo contract. It is some elaborate fantasy that you have cooked up for yourself so that you could find a way to shine through your daughter. Frankly, it's pretty disgusting.
Particularly because we all love Brianna. She is, I suppose, the only real person who has ever inhabited one of these shows. She's like an actual, rational human being, which is harder to find than a unicorn giving a ride to a straight Liza Minelli fan on the way to watch the Browns in the Super Bowl (the Browns are a family of football playing squirrels). That is to say that Brianna is unique and amazing and someone who I would actually want to be friends with. I would say that I would watch a reality show all about her, but it would probably just be scenes of her watching Grey's Anatomy on DVR wearing her comfy sweats and on her third glass of wine, which would be fun but I watched that show for 18 years when it was called "Mom" and it was kind of boring.
This is all to say that the audience, of course, has Brianna's back in The Great Battle of the Elopement. Oh, speaking of which, I love when Vicki was like "We never really fought," and then the show brings up all this old black and white footage of years of the two of them squabbling. You can't hide from the past when it's so well documented, Vicki. You can't run, you can't hide, and you can't reinvent. You can only be humiliated.
Next: What the hell is Wine By Wives?
Alright, I'm going to skip over all the stupid shit about Gretchen and Slade getting married (seriously, Gretch, if you marry him with all that debt and messiness then your head is emptier than Alexis' prayers) and get right to the Wine by Wives party. First of all, what is Wine by Wives? It appears to be some sort of alcoholic ponzi scheme. It's a Pinot Grift-io. I bet Brooks thought it up because, well, he is a flim-flam man. Anyway, Vicki and Tamra invite all their friends over to some penthouse in Irvine, the luxury capital of the state of California's higher education department, to launch their liquid pyramid scheme. Actually, there weren't that many people there. It was the Housewives and their attendant husbands (except Tamra got a special dispensation for her son Ryan so that he could leave the house and go to the party and his ankle monitor wouldn't go off) and Alexis brought an alien. Oh, wait. That's Jim. He just looks so much like a fat version of the Great Gazoo that I always get confused. There were like three other people there and they were all probably employees of Vicki's.
Anyway, Michael, Vicki's other kid who is never on the show at all because he must be boring as blob of Play-D'oh or just hates that his family is trotting it's life out on the screen, show's up at the party and everyone is all fancied up and gussy gloried to hell and Michael rolls in wearing jeans. "What up, dawgs?!" he asks, giving everyone deuces and making a face like someone just dropped said deuce. Vicki introduces him to Brooks, her boyfriend who is a criminal of some sort, and tells them to go off together and have a catch and sing a round of "Cat's in the Cradle." They go upstairs and Brooks is all, "I really love your mom. She's so great, and I know I just met her two weeks ago but I have investigated her stock portfolio and I have decided that I will say whatever she wants to please her. Are you OK with that? So, what about your sister? Oh, and I have these time shares in Arizona and the great thing is you don't have to sell them, you just have to recruit people who are going to pay you to try to sell them. It's called multi-level marketing. That's what I do. We can make a fortune."
Michael, however is all like, "Um, I don't really want to do this now. I don't want to meet every man my mom dates. Also, I saw Glengarry Glen Ross and I think that you're trying to pull a scam on me. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Michael is also a little pissed that Brianna didn't tell him that she got married and he had to find out on Facebook. I feel your pain, Mike. My brother eloped and he told me by text message. He couldn't even call? What a jerk! But I got over it pretty quickly, why can't all of these Housepersonages? What is their damage, Dion?
Anyway, so Vicki calls all 10 people at this big deluxe Amway wine party and says she has a big announcement to make. Her daughter Brianna, that no good asshole, went and got married in Vegas and didn't even ask her. "Here is a whip, if you will please step up and take turns lashing Mr. and Mrs. Brianna and her Husband!" Brianna comes out and everyone is all excited. Heather says, "I'm shocked!" Alexis says, "Praise Jesus." Gretchen says, "I think I lost my blue cheese in this wine glass. SLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAADE, get it out!" Tamra says, "You are wearing my dress, you freaking cooze!"
Everyone is very happy but they all say that if their daughters eloped, that they would have a conniption fit. Get over it, people. When your child is 25 years old and makes a decision that makes her happy you just need to get over it and move on with your life. I mean it's not like Brianna's husband Ryan is some guy who abandoned his children in Mississippi so that he could go live with a lonely wealthy woman on a reality television show and has no describable profession and has been to prison for not paying child support. No, it's not like that at all. He's a nice young man who was in the Marines and served in Iraq and is as quick to laugh and easy-going as Brianna. Anyone would love to have him in the family.
Then Vicki tells everyone that she has a huge surprise for Brianna. "Oh, don't say you're engaged," she mumbles. Vicki shoots a dagger out of her eye says, "No. It's drunk Uncle Billy!" She says and a sozzled swizzle stick of a man comes sloshing down the stairs holding a bottle of Jack in one hand, his tie undone and his jacket full of boozy sweat. "Heya kiddo. Howth it hangin?" Oh, Drunk Uncle Billy.
After that big surprise, Vicki tells Brianna and Ryan that they have to sit down and talk to Brooks. She doesn't want to. As she said before, no one knows anything about this guy or what he does or who he is and he just says everything you want to hear in his low twang like he's Sawyer returned from The Island and aged 20 years. Brianna is right to be cautious. They sit down and Brooks is all, "I love you like a daughter. I love you like my own kids, which means I think you're really awesome and everything, but I won't give you a red cent. But you are the HTTP Colon Backslash Blackslash Dubya Dubya Dubya dot Bomb dot Com. And you have success in your genes, because your mom is so successful, so whatever you do, you are genetically disposed to be amazing. Now, enough with the flattery. A friend of mine told me about this bridge that is connected to Manhattan. Now, it seems like a sound investment and he said that he could sell me a few pieces of this bridge and it's going to make a very lot of money. Would you be interested in loaning me some money for this business opportunity?"
Vicki cuts him off to let Brianna know that their relationships are the same. Oh hell no, Vicki. Brianna is married to a nice, normal, wonderful, loving hunk of a Marine and you are being swindled by Foghorn Leghorn. You're just letting Colonel Sanders walk right into your henhouse and walk away with all the Chicken (Flavored Product). Brianna is this guy's partner. You are Brook's meal ticket. Don't you see the difference?
After their meeting, Brianna finished off her stemless glass of champagne and got up off the Ikea couch to go. "Brianna, wait," Vicki said, toppling after her into the hall. And that left Ryan an Brooks sitting alone on the sectional. Ryan was leaning back into the cushions, his arm up on top of them, feeling the void that Brianna just left. He put his hand on his leg close to his crotch. It was a defensive position, and Brooks rocked on his feet a bit as he sat hunched over with his arms on his thighs. He was looking right at Ryan and trying to figure out the thing he would say to him to win him an ally. Maybe he could mention something about the war or his time in the service. He hadn't even served, but he could make something up, he was good at that. Maybe he should welcome him and let him know that his first mother-in-law didn't like him either, which is why he sold her savings bonds and bought himself a jet-ski. Maybe he should just get him drunk and tell him stories about when he was a young pussy hound down in Bay St. Louis, taking the young windows of oil men from New Orleans to town and getting gifts out of them slowly, like pearls out of oysters. No, that was too obvious. Like gold from a mine. Nope, again, too on the head. Like those little bits of pudding out of bubble tea, one flavorful burst at a time flying up a fat plastic straw and into his mouth. That's what he would tell him, his pussy hound days. "You know, Ryan...."
"No." Ryan responded, not moving or flinching. Definitive. Succinct. "Don't."
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
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It's a strange profession, this being a Real Housewife of Perfect Town, USA. Strange indeed. Nominally, you're not supposed to have a job at all (sorry, Ann Romney, Housewivery of the traditional sort is an occupation, but it is not a job). Still each of these ladies work, even if it is as a shrieking ghost specter on a reality television show. But then once they're on the show and working they need to use that platform, they all think, to make even more money. They need jobs and endorsements and careers, yes, careers, because they all know being a bottled scream jester for Andy Cohen's amusement won't last forever. They need dance singles and clothing lines and purses and spin-offs and cook books. Then it is those things that feed the action of the show, living off each other into syndicated perpetuity, like a troll feeding off of it's own s**t.
Yes, that is what it is like when Housewives work. Last night's episode of the Real Mole People of Mountain Hill was all about working. No, not working like a drag queen shouts, "WERQ!" at something fierce, it was more like working like a hooker on the corner. Work, girls. Work until your little hearts explode in a glitter bomb of pennies.
First we have Alexis worried about work. Well, she was worried about how her hosting segment on Fox 5 went. She had a panel of experts whose names she couldn't pronounce get together to talk about pre-school orgies or Pamper Parties or some made up Fox News stories about how fetuses are knocking boots. Sexuality begins at conception. Remember that, people. Alexis sits Gretchen down to watch the segment and get her reaction. The basis of Gretchen's expertise, according to Alexis, is that Gretchen was on the San Antonio morning show to talk about her purse line. Yes, that makes her a master of the genre. The San Antonio morning show has a weekly segment about barbecue. You can probably get as much good advice from a big pile of brisket as you could from Gretchen Brisket-for-Brains Rossi. Gretchen says, "Oh, I"m so glad you're getting to do this. They asked me to do it and my schedule was just so busy what with my full-time job as a Slade sitter and whatnot, that I just couldn't do it. I'm glad you can get my cast-offs." As a yeast infection says to a vagina: Burn!
As much as Alexis insisted that she had her own segment, Gretchen was like, "Yeah, that's what they told me too. And they keep calling me about it." Maybe that's because, as Gretchen pointed out, Alexis shows up with her left nipple showing to do a segment about how babies have too much sex together and Fox 5 really wants to fire her if they can find a replacement Housewife. Oh, Alexis is awful. Yes, Alexis is an awful television host. Period. She's just bad. So Gretchen tries to tell her nicely, "Um, maybe you should get a hosting coach, like I did. I can give you her number. Look at how helpful she was. I'm hosting all the time now. I'm actually hostessing at the Olive Garden in the mini-mall this weekend. She got me that gig!" Alexis gets all huffy, "I invited her over to get her support and she wouldn't give it to me." What, Alexis? You want her to watch you screw up on nation local television and then tell you that you did a good job? That's crazy. She did the right thing and told you that you needed to work on your television appearances. That is a true friend, right there.
Knowing that she needs some help in the hosting department, Alexis goes to her host (you know as in the lumpy piece of bread that you eat during communion at mass), her husband Jim. Alright, everyone, Jim is the living worst. He just is. The prizes have been handed out for the worst living thing in the whole world, and Jim won. Actually it was a tie between Jim and bedbugs, but Jim took home the trophy, because he is the worst. Anyway, Jim (who Tamra accuses of having a chin implant, which, HA! forever) tells Alexis that she can not take a class on how to be a television hostess. Why? Because it might lead to her having a career then she wouldn't be at him to care for him and raise his children. She might have to (gasps!) get a nanny. Remember when we first met Alexis and she bragged about having two nannies? Well, apparently Jim has rewritten the Bible and it is now a sin to have a nanny. Settled.
What is Jim spending all his time doing? He's working on a "trampoline park." What the himminey-heck is a trampoline park? How is that going to make them money? How is that going to get them out of the rented house? Is the problem with Alexis' hosting class that it's going to cost money that they just don't have? Then why do they have 17 cars? It's clear that this is something Alexis really wants and, as she says, something that won't take up too much time. More and more Alexis wants some validation outside of her house and Jim keeps denying her. Doesn't he see where this is going to lead? It's going to lead to two rented houses and him never seeing his children because, god forbid, he actually has to spend a minute caring for them. Ugh, Jim is the living worst. He has a Grinch for a heart and an Ebenezer Scrooge for a penis.
Next: Alexis' downfall brought to you by juxtaposition.The meanest thing this show does to Alexis — who we all know is a stupid, craven airhead — is destroying her by juxtaposition. Earlier in the season they interspersed scenes of Alexis ailing after her nose job and making it sound like she was being stretched out on the rack during the Inquisition, and Brianna, Vicki's daughter, who had surgery for what possibly could have been cancer and not complaining one bit. That is how this show just grinds Alexis into a pulp with its red-bottomed stiletto, by showing, comparatively, how awful she really is. This time they did it with Heather.
Heather is a woman who has no job and an assistant. I know a lot of unemployed people and Heather, our lady of the granite cave, is the only one I have ever know that needs an assistant. Anyway, Heather, is better known as Heather Paige Kent, who is (or was) an actress. She even has an IMDb page. That means she is a real actress. She started on a show called That's Life and a Jenny McCarthy vehicle called Jenny. (That wasn't a show, she and Jenny wore bikinis and just sat on the hood of a car that had "Jenny" airbrushed across it.) She was also on the very popular television movie Untitled Camryn Manheim Pilot about a US Air Force ace who couldn't remember the name of an Emmy-winning actress. Anyway, Heather wants to start acting again and goes to audition for a show.
When she gets home, her very lovely husband Terry (who I would also marry, because he is nice and handsome and makes a lot of money) asks her how it went. She says it went well, but she's not sure if she's ready for another series, because this one films in Canada. You can tell he's not pleased about the prospect of her taking off to a foreign country (which, come on, Canada barely counts) to film some TV show. He plays devil's advocate, but they talk about the possibility like grown ups and both make their side of the argument. However, at the end of the conversation he says that he wants to support her and will help her make any decision she thinks is best for her life. This is what a real actual husband who is a nice person and has a real job and is not working on a trampoline park and isn't the World's #1,000,000th Dad says. This is how Alexis is doomed, because her discussion with Jim is put right after Heather's rather constructive discussion with her husband.
Now we must discuss Gretchen Rossi, a bag of extension hair you bought at Wigs 'N' Stuff that has a pair of eyes. Gretchen has been training for a guest spot on Little Kitty Cat's Dance Hour, a children's show where she is going to strut around in a cat costume and sing a song about fevers, so that kids will know what is wrong with them when they get ill. She's worried about having to sing and dance and make kids feel okay all at the same time, especially because her voice is still all messed up from the Bunga Party (which we learned was three weeks before her singing engagement). Sorry, but nothing that happened three weeks ago is going to have that much impact on your voice. Gretchen needs to face the reality that she just can't sing.
So, Gretchen gets to Vegas and she meets Mikey, a duck that was turned into a human homosexual. You can tell this is true because he still has a bill. He has giant lips and all he says is, "Quack! You suck. Quack! You can't sing. Quack! You look fat. Quack, Mary, Quack!" Mikey is a monster. Since there is a Duck Man (a Merduck?) Gretchen still thinks she is going to be on Captain Kangaroo and the Kitty Cat Brigade and Mikey says, "Quack! No way, lady. Quack! This is a burlesque show. Quack!"
Great, now Gretchen has to worry about not being able to sing (which she can't) and trying to be sexy at the same time. Mikey says, "Quack! This will suck if you can't quack, I mean sing. Quack! So, just stand there and try to sing and don't think about anything else. The more you think, the more you suck. Quack!" That is the truest thing that anyone has ever told Gretchen Rossi in her whole damn life. "The more you think, the more you suck." He didn't really say that, but Gretchen needs to put that on the ass of a pair of velour sweatpants because that needs to be her new mantra. "The more you think, the more you suck." Get into it!
Next: Clearly, it's time for a group trip to Vegas!
So, all of the ladies are coming to Vegas with their significant others to watch Gretchen attempt to sing. Even Vicki, who is being nice to Gretchen, but on the inside she's thinking, "I can't wait to see what this bitch does." (Long parenthetical: Oh my god, guys. We have to talk about that crazy hooker that Alexis hired to do her makeup in Vegas. Did she go to the Al Jolson School of Makeup or something? I mean, she made Alexis look like a whore. Usually Alexis is the only person who makes her look like a whore. But really, this crazy strung out bitch just troweled on her makeup and made her look like a bug-eyed mud person. Then Alexis had to take it all off and put on her own makeup. Um, how about you just did that in the first place and save having some stripper who you found roaming the strip with a makeup bag looking for a meth fix come upstairs and mess up your face. You can't go out one time without a makeup artist? Oh, Alexis. You will never get it right.) Everyone is at dinner and Tamra is there with Eddie and Alexis brought Jim, the human embodiment of a Dutch Oven, and Vicki brought the grifter known as Brooks who told some story about how much he loves Vicki and no one understood it and then he went around the table and stole everyone's wallets. Heather and Terry were there too, smiling and nodding like they were having dinner at a poor cousin's house. I love them.
Finally, they go to the Big Kitty Cat Pussy Scratch Club to watch Gretchen. Alexis, in all her wisdom, says that the burlesque club looks like a strip club. Oh, Alexis. That's like saying, "This pizza parlor looks like a restaurant." It's because they're the same [bleeping] thing! Don't you know what the hell a burlesque club is? Oh, just go sit down next to your husband Jim, the second coming of the pile of turd from Weird Science, and shut up.
But she doesn't. She goes backstage to hold Gretchen's hand. "Break a leg," Alexis says. "Well, not literally. Let's pray instead." Gretchen looks at her like she would look at someone who just had their makeup done by a drunk hooker and says, "Are you sure?" "Yes." They hold hands and Alexis starts, "Oh heavenly father..." and that's all Gretchen hears. She closes her eyes and she thinks of the crowd out there, the stage and the back up dancers. She thinks of the lyrics of her song and the marks she has to hit. She thinks of Slade, sitting there in the front row smiling like a cat that just found the bag of cat food and spilled it all over the kitchen and ate so much he's about to puke. She thinks of everything and she sees God guiding her through every beat, every step, every note. She finally has it. She got it. She can do this. She is going to kill it.
"Amen," she hears Alexis say as she lets go of the glitterly gloves that are built into her crazy unitard costume. Gretchen takes a deep breath and she feels the Holy Spirit inside of her. She feels it fill her lungs like when she breathes under the mist machines that are constantly flowing outside of the door of Cosmopolitian Hotel, battling back the desert night. She feels empowered, filled with the glow of the strip and ready to let it's light shine through her.
"What are you doing?" Mikey bursts in to say. "We're praying," Alexis answers, swaying back and forth with pride like a four-year-old that just used the big girl potty. "Praying?" Mikey asks. "We don't need to pray, honey. That is what rehearsal is for." He pauses for a moment before turning and walking toward the stage in an elaborately exaggerated gesture and then lets it out, so soft the girls can barely hear it. "Quack!"
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
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